Fintech & Blockchain

Course Overview

• Total Duration: 12 Lecture Hours + 5 Homework Hours
• Format: Blended (10 Hours Online, 2 Hours In-Person)
• Schedule: 4 Hours per week over 3 weeks (Evening sessions)
• Target Audience: MBA students, young professionals, and self-employed investors
• Core Objective: Analyze and evaluate Fintech business models, decentralized financial architecture, and corporate blockchain applications to identify strategic opportunities and disruption risks.

Weekly Breakdown & Lecture Modules

Week 1: The Fintech Landscape & Digital Banking Evolution (4 Hours Online)
Focus: Legacy disruption, open banking platforms, and modern payment rails.

• Lecture 1: The Unbundling of Banking (2 Hours)
  • Neobanks and Challenger Banks: Customer acquisition strategies and unit economics.
  • Embedded Finance and Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS): How non-financial brands launch financial products.
  • Regulatory frameworks: Open Banking, PSD3, and data privacy constraints.
• Lecture 2: Next-Gen Payments & Lending (2 Hours)
  • Cross-border payment rails: SWIFT vs. Real-Time Payments (RTP) and stablecoin networks.
  • Alternative lending: AI-driven credit scoring, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending, and Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) mechanics.
  • Homework 1 Assigned (1.5 Hours): BaaS Case Analysis. Students analyze a non-financial platform (e.g., Shopify, Uber) and map out its embedded financial ecosystem, identifying the underlying BaaS providers.

Week 2: Blockchain Architecture & Decentralized Networks (4 Hours Online)
Focus: Technical foundations, smart contracts, and economic token design.

• Lecture 3: Distributed Ledgers & Cryptographic Trust (2 Hours)
  • Mechanics of blockchain: Blocks, hashing, consensus mechanisms (Proof of Work vs. Proof of Stake).
  • Public vs. private/permissioned blockchains (Hyperledger, Corda) in enterprise settings.
  • Smart contracts: Automation of trust, execution logic, and vulnerability risks.
• Lecture 4: Tokenomics & Digital Assets (2 Hours)
  • Asset tokenization: Real World Assets (RWAs) like real estate, bonds, and commodities on-chain.
  • Stablecoin design: Fiat-backed vs. algorithmic models, and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).
  • Economics of utility tokens: Inflationary, deflationary, and value-capture mechanisms.
  • Homework 2 Assigned (2 Hours): Tokenomics & Architecture Design. Students draft a high-level blueprint for tokenizing a traditional asset class, detailing the consensus choice, token mechanism, and compliance hurdles.

Week 3: DeFi, Enterprise Use Cases & Synthesis (2 Hours Online + 2 Hours In-Person)
Focus: Financial Lego pieces, enterprise implementation, and final strategic pitches.

• Lecture 5: Decentralized Finance (DeFi) & Web3 Business Models (2 Hours Online)
  • Automated Market Makers (AMMs) and Liquidity Pools (e.g., Uniswap).
  • Decentralized lending protocols (e.g., Aave) and over-collateralization mechanics.
  • Web3 governance: Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) and voting frameworks.
• Lecture 6: Corporate Strategy Capstone & Pitch (2 Hours In-Person)
  • Interactive Workshop: Evaluating corporate blockchain failures vs. successes. How to determine if a business problem actually requires a blockchain.
  • Live student presentations and strategic peer reviews of the capstone business pitches.
  • Homework 3 Assigned (1.5 Hours): The Fintech/Blockchain Pitch. Create a 3-slide strategic proposal detailing a specific Fintech or Blockchain solution tailored for an existing enterprise or a new startup.

Homework & Assessment Breakdown (5 Hours Total)

• Assignment 1: Unbundling Assessment (1.5 Hours)
  • Task: Select a traditional financial product (e.g., mortgages, wealth management) and dissect how a specific Fintech startup has unbundled and optimized it.
• Assignment 2: Tokenization Blueprint (2 Hours)
  • Task: Pick a illiquid physical asset. Design a conceptual framework for tokenizing it, outlining the regulatory challenges and the financial benefits to investors.
• Assignment 3: The Strategic Pitch (1.5 Hours)
  • Task: Build a capstone proposal. Students must pitch a corporate solution or startup concept based on the criteria: Clear Problem + Validated Fintech/Blockchain Architecture + Viable Regulatory Strategy.

Analytical tools & resources that students will get familiar with

• Fintech Insights: CB Insights (Fintech reports), Tearsheet, FinTech Futures.
• Blockchain Explorers & Trackers: Etherscan (Smart contract reading), DeFiLlama (RWA/DeFi tracking), MetaMask (crypto wallets).